Southgate thinks to break historical curse

CAIRO –13 November 2017: Gareth Southgate, England's coach, is considering giving players a penalty shootout at Wembley Stadium in an attempt to overcome the usual stress of English players when they play in major tournaments.

England has suffered from a penalty shootout six times in major tournaments – three times in the World Cup and three times in the European Championship – since the 1990 World Cup. They won only once – against Spain in the 1996 European Championship.
"It's something that we are considering; how we prepare best for penalty shootouts," said Southgate.

England has a wining ratio of 14% in the penalty shootout, the lowest of any country that has had a penalty shootout five times or more.

Southgate wasted a famous penalty against Germany in the 1996 European Championship, along with Chris Waddle and Stuart Pearce after they also wasted two penalty shootouts in the 1990 World Cup final against Germany.

"Whether that's something on the training ground, whether that's in sessions we do away from the training ground, or something we do in some sort of match scenario. We've not finalized that yet, but clearly that is an option," Southgate added.

Statistics showed that England had 89% chance of scoring if the first two shoots were successful, but the rate was down to 57% if they failed.